Sweep You off Your Feet
by planet p
Summary: AU; possible continuation to The Rain House.


**Sweep You off Your Feet** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _Doctor Who_ or any of its characters.

AU; a possible continuation to _The Rain House_, written in 2006 or 2005.

* * *

The TARDIS had landed. The grating sound had dissipated. The column in the centre of the console had stopped moving.

Rose pushed the TARDIS doors open and rushed out.

She knocked on the flat door impatiently. Jackie took a while to open it. Rose, as soon as she was let in, grabbed Jackie and hugged her tight. "Hi, Mum," she said.

Jackie stared, but made no comment. Rose rushed into the lounge and thumped herself down on the couch. Something animated was on the telly. Rose stood back up. She couldn't keep still and rushed into the kitchen. "Mum, where's the bikkies?" she shouted.

"On the coffee table," Jackie called from another room.

Rose dashed back into the lounge, and grabbed a handful of biscuits from the bowl. She stopped. And looked up. "Paula!" Rose was so surprised she fell back on the couch.

Paula was staring at her.

"Hi."

"Thought I'd visit," Paula said. "But you were out."

"With the Doctor," Rose told her, through a mouthful of biscuit. Rose pointed out the window. "See that blue box. It's a spaceship."

* * *

Paula laughed. "I hate the doctor's," she chimed. "Are you still waiting for someone to come and sweep you off your feet?"

Rose glared as if she were angry, but she wasn't really, and smiled at her old school friend.

"You'll have to do better than hand around a phone box. Everyone has mobiles these days if you haven't noticed. Get a nice miniskirt or the sort and a pretty top. Rose, how come you never wear anything jazzy?"

"Did once," Rose told her, eating another biscuit, "real pretty black number too. Nobody ever even noticed. Too busy saving the world. Ghost-busting. You know the story, same old story."

Paula – Rose's very freckly, very tiny friend – had grown up.

"Look at you," Rose screamed. "When did you grow up?"

Paula stood up and turned on the spot, like a ballerina in one of those old fashioned music boxes.

"Yeah. Nice isn't it?"

"Perty."

They both burst into a fit of giggling.

Jackie stood in the kitchen watching them from the doorway, realising just how much Rose had grown up.

There was a knock on the door and Jackie left to answer it. It was the Doctor.

She stared at him. "Rose is in the lounge," she said plainly.

Paula suddenly stopped laughing, and Rose noted that it had been with considerable effort. Rose decided that laughing on her own was not very fun at all, so taking a deep breath, choked instead. She looked up, her eyes watery and her vision blurred, and blinking a few times noted that the Doctor had come in and was gazing at the telly.

"Is that your mum's boyfriend?" Paula asked quietly.

Before Rose could answer the Doctor had turned to her and bounded over like a sore puppy dog. "Seen the remote?" he asked.

She leant over and snatched it off the carpet.

"Ta."

"You could've just used the buttons on the telly."

He was no longer listening.

"He's your boyfriend!"

"No," Rose looked shocked. "He's just a friend," she rushed on.

"And do all your friends look at you like that?"

"Like what?" Rose asked dismissively.

"Like that."

"Oh – he looks at everybody like that. Thinks they're made out of clockwork or something. I can't figure him out. He's a bit crazy, I think."

"For whom?" Paula whispered.

Rose glared at her, so she changed the topic. It had been Paula's fault they had lost contact, she always started the wildest rumours.

"So I take it you are still waiting to be swept off your feet. I've had no such luck myself."

"I was into that alien abduction thing a while ago," Rose told her friend.

Paula grinned, that'd be just like Rose.

The Doctor spun around. "You never told me that."

Rose frowned. "You do know what private means don't you, Doctor – as in, this conversation's private."

He shrugged and turned back to whatever he was doing, tinkering with the remote Rose supposed.

"That was a bit mean," Paula said.

Rose huffed. She couldn't do a thing right.

"Doctor, can I ask you something?"

"Hmm," he didn't turn around.

"D'you like Paula or something?"

He spun around.

"It's just that, you only avoid people if you like them. Well, that's what Mum told me."

He smiled. This shocked Paula. It was a very odd smile. Surely he couldn't be that happy?

"No, silly. I don't like Paula. Come to think of it – who's Paula?"

"My friend."

Paula smiled.

"Oh. Sorry, love. But – hey – no hard feelings."

"No hard feelings," Paula agreed, somewhat reluctantly.

Rose walked over and hugged this man she called "Doctor." "Doctor," Rose told him, "you know Paula doesn't believe that that there phone box is a spaceship."

"Oh really. Why not?"

Paula was staring at them seriously now. They started to laugh. Some joke, Paula thought, it hadn't been very funny, but even Mrs. Tyler standing by the door seemed to be smiling.

Jackie smiled, that was a bit of a cruel joke. Catching sight of poor little Paula watching her, however, she stopped smiling.

* * *

To be continued in _The Lake Walk_. Thanks for reading!


End file.
